Dead Connection (28 page)

“Listen to your lieutenant,” Eckels continued. “McIlroy comes out a hero this way. You get to stand by the side of the assistant chief as he announces the end of a killing spree that could have become another Son of Sam.”

“And the other way?”

Jenkins worked his jaw as Eckels spelled it out for her. “Both you and McIlroy abandoned protocol. McIlroy went to City Island on his own, not bothering to notify his own partner, let alone call for backup. When you realized what he’d done, you worsened matters by following him, again, totally on your own, without backup. You made the trip, in a department vehicle, despite the fact that you’d been drinking that night—”

Ellie opened her mouth to interrupt, but Eckels only raised his voice.

“
And
you continued to consume more alcohol once you got to City Island.”

“I told the detectives I took two sips because—”

“You were a rookie detective, in over your head, without backup. You’d been drinking. Your judgment was impaired, and your partner was murdered right in front of you. Not to mention you’ve got some demons in your past that might keep you from accepting the department’s conclusion that your friend Ed Becker committed suicide.”

“That’s a low blow,” Ellie said quietly.

“And it’s precisely what the media will say if you try to derail the closure of this case. There is no one-armed man that we have yet to chase down, Detective. Ed Becker killed those women, and he killed Flann McIlroy.”

“Are we done here?” Ellie asked.

“The assistant chief expects you to stay for the press conference,” Eckels said.

“No thank you.” Ellie stood to leave.

“What exactly are your future plans with respect to this department, Detective?”

“Am I required to answer that in the course of my duties?” Ellie looked to Randy Jenkins.

“No,” her lieutenant said quietly. “You’re entitled to paid leave regardless of what you do. And you cannot be forced to attend a press conference.”

“Well, then. Lieutenant Jenkins, I guess you’ll be hearing from me when my leave is up. Thank you for taking the time to be here for me this morning. I really do appreciate it.”

Jenkins urged Ellie to stay, but Eckels cut him off. “You’re wasting your time, Randy.”

“That, Lieutenant Eckels, was the strongest show of leadership you demonstrated all morning.” Ellie walked out of Eckels’s office and out of the Thirteenth Precinct without looking back. The media vans were already lined up on Twenty-first Street for the assistant chief’s forthcoming announcement. She had a decision to make.

But she had already made the decision six years ago, that night under the Washington Square Arch. She had decided that sitting with blissful ignorance on life’s sidelines was not in her nature. She decided to become a cop. For the last three days, she had been fighting her nature, filling her schedule with back-to-back activities in an attempt to ignore the questions eating away at her like cancer. She had waited for the department’s conclusions. Now that she’d heard them, it was time to follow her instincts. She owed this to Flann and to herself. She was going to find out what really happened.

She pulled up the hood of her coat, swaddled herself in her scarf, and headed away from the cameras while she dialed the number for the FBI field office.

36

“YOU KNOW THIS IS BLACKMAIL, DON’T YOU?” CHARLIE DIXON
stood behind his desk with his arms folded, looking out the window at lower Manhattan.

Sitting in a guest chair across from his desk, Ellie Hatcher uncrossed her legs and shook her head in mock disappointment. “Is that how far the FBI has gone astray from its traditional law enforcement concerns? You consider it
blackmail
now for a local police officer to share information about criminal activity and expect some modicum of cooperation?”

Dixon turned to face her. “When it’s accompanied by threats if I refuse, then yeah, I consider that blackmail.”

“All I said was that if you couldn’t help me, I’d have to find someone who could. And the fact that you were previously seen, multiple times, at Vibrations with Tatiana Chekova — a very attractive federal informant, by the way — might be relevant.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“Tomato, tomahto.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to help you find out the truth about Ed Becker if the NYPD’s not interested?”

“I need two things from you. The first is a federal arrest warrant for Vitali Rostov, Tatiana Chekova’s brother-in-law. My brother was assaulted Friday night by two men in the Vibrations parking lot. He can ID Rostov as one of the assailants. Rostov did it so I’d back off the questions I was asking about Lev Grosha.”

Dixon shook his head. “There’s no federal jurisdiction for a garden variety assault. And even if he intended to send a message to you, it’s not a federal offense to interfere with a local investigation.”

“What about the fact that they took his wallet?”

Dixon had seen this before in local cops. Just because the FBI had stepped in on one of their robbery cases in the past, they mistakenly assumed every robbery was a federal concern. “Robbery falls under the Hobb’s Act but only if it affects interstate commerce.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. My job is so much simpler. See person do bad thing? Haul out the handcuffs. What does that mean,
affecting commerce
?”

Dixon hardly understood the nuances of federal jurisdiction himself, so he tried to make it simple. “It could mean a lot of things, but we usually only go that route when it’s a commercial robbery. Then we show that the money that was taken from Home Depot or wherever would’ve been spent in commerce.”

“Well, okay then. There you go. Jess spends money in commerce all the time. There’s your jurisdiction.”

Dixon frowned.

“I don’t care if he’s charged or not,” Ellie said. Once a suspect was in the box — even if it was for jaywalking — no limits existed on what a guy just might tell a cop. “I just want him in custody. Can you get an arrest warrant under the Hobb’s Act?”

“Yeah, I could get a warrant. What’s the purpose, though? I’m sure you’re pissed about your brother, but I thought you were interested in finding out more about Becker.”

She seemed to choose her words carefully, as if she knew how much her words would pain him. “I think Vitali Rostov was the person Tatiana was protecting when she was your informant. When I showed Zoya a photograph of Lev Grosha, I think she might have recognized him. Then a couple of hours later, Rostov is beating up my brother in a parking lot, telling me to stop asking questions. And when Tatiana told you that the people she knew had sources in the NYPD, I think she was talking about Ed Becker. Flann told me that he saw Becker take protection money once back in the day. If Becker was in bed with Russian OC, it explains how he managed to own a yacht.”

Dixon fell into his office chair, digesting the information. “It would also explain why he did nothing on Tatiana’s murder case. Damnit, I never even looked into Tatiana’s family. She was always talking about how straight and perfect they were — how her sister was so proud of living the immigrant American dream with her devoted husband.”

“When Tatiana said all those things, she was probably trying to steer you from the truth. Zoya
is
proud of her life, but she turns a blind eye to the way her husband makes a living. Tatiana held out on you to protect her sister.”

“And you think Rostov and Becker found out that Tatiana was an informant and killed her for it?”

“There’s something else, Charlie.” It was the first time she’d called him by his first name. “Zoya remembers seeing you with Tatiana. It was only once, but she said she saw Tatiana in the passenger seat of your car one day after she went to them for money. You were driving. And her husband saw you with her too.”

Dixon swallowed hard. “I drove Tatiana there once. She wanted to see her nephew.”

“When you visited Tatiana at Vibrations, did you ever check for tails? Someone could have followed you from there and found out who you were.”

He turned his head toward the wall. “This is hard to hear, you know?”

“I was ten feet away when my partner got shot four nights ago. We all do things we wish we could try again.”

“If they killed her because of me—”

“Not because of you, Charlie. Because she flipped and gave information on them.”

“But if they killed her for that, then what about the other women? Where do they fit in?”

“I don’t know. Tatiana told you she overheard someone — probably Vitali, maybe Lev Grosha — mention FirstDate. Let’s say Stern was laundering money for them, or was somehow involved in their criminal enterprise. Maybe he backed out, and they did this to get to him by ruining FirstDate?”

“Murder three innocent women to scare away customers from a company? That’s a pretty sociopathic reason to kill.”

“But maybe that’s precisely what we’re dealing with. All along, this whole Book of Enoch thing has felt wrong to me. Look at the reasons why people kill.”

Dixon ticked off the classics on his fingers. “Greed, jealousy, lust, revenge.”

“Exactly. A sociopath kills innocent people out of those same motivations, but with an underlying logic that makes sense only to them. One of my forensic psychology professors gave us the following problem. A woman goes to her mother’s funeral. While she’s there, a man stops and offers his condolences. Even though she’s never met the man, she falls in love with him on the spot. She’s convinced they’re soul mates. But she never finds out who he is, so there goes her chance at love. A month later, the woman kills her sister. Why?”

Barry Mayfield would know the answer. The guys chosen by Quantico to work serial cases would know. Dixon was left guessing. “Because she found out her sister was dating the mystery man?”

“No. Your mistake is assuming that the dead sister has some rational connection to the killer’s motive. You’re looking for some reason that the sister deserves to die. The answer is that the woman killed her sister hoping the mystery man would come to the funeral. Only a sociopath would think that way. He sees nothing wrong with using totally innocent people as a means to serve his ends. And if that’s what we’re dealing with, then this could be a case that’s all about greed or revenge. That’s why we have to figure out the relationship between Vitali Rostov, Ed Becker, and FirstDate.”

When Hatcher showed up in his office just as he was leaving for lunch, Dixon was inclined to hear her out only in the hope she’d keep quiet about Tatiana. But if Ed Becker didn’t act alone — if Vitali Rostov had something to do with what happened to Tatiana — then Dixon was in this for his own reasons. For two years, since the first night Tatiana slept in his bed, he had managed to convince himself he was an honorable man. But he had been a coward, motivated solely by his desire to hide his relationship with the kindest woman he’d ever known. He was done worrying about himself.

“How else can I help?”

“And I thought I was going to have to blackmail you some more,” Hatcher said with a smile. “Would a proven connection between Rostov and Becker help shore up a federal case against Rostov?”

Dixon nodded. “We could use the fact that the NYPD takes federal funds. Or even if Rostov and Becker used the mail or the phone to deprive the public of Becker’s honest services, we could go with conspiracy to commit mail or wire fraud.”

“Excellent. That’s the second thing I need. Can you get Ed Becker’s laptop from the NYPD? You’ll have to make it sound like your interest is a modest one. You’re just making sure that Tatiana’s murder wasn’t related to her being an informant, and you want to check the laptop to verify there’s no connection between Becker and the criminal conspiracy Tatiana was giving information about. If you make it sound like you’re questioning Becker’s guilt for the FirstDate murders, they’ll fight you tooth and nail about releasing the evidence.”

“No problem.”

“Good. I’m going to try to talk to Zoya one last time before her husband’s in custody and her lucky world comes crashing down around her. Call me when you’ve got the laptop in hand. What I really want to see is whether Becker actually hacked into the victims’ FirstDate accounts. If not, our killer’s still out there.”

“Wait a second. That’s going to be a problem. We’ll need a computer analyst for that, and I don’t trust any of my people to keep their mouths shut on something that big. And like you said, if the NYPD realizes we’re second-guessing their conclusions, I’ll get squelched.”

“That’s why we’re not using your analysts. I know a computer guy who will help us. We’ll take a little sneak on our own, and then bring in your analyst if there’s something there to show federal jurisdiction. I just want the laptop.”

“That’s not exactly kosher, bringing in a private citizen to look at evidence.”

“Do you plan on telling anyone?” Ellie asked.

“Nope. The question is whether I can trust you.”

“Given where we stand right now, I’d say you don’t have much of a choice.”

Tatiana, Caroline, Amy, Megan, and now Flann were dead, and they all had friends, lovers, and family to mourn them and yearn for answers. But only Charlie and Ellie were in a position to do anything about it.

“JASON, IT’S ELLIE Hatcher, your friendly neighborhood detective. You haven’t blocked my number yet?” There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Ellie hoped she hadn’t overestimated Jason Upton’s willingness to help.

“Sorry, it took me a second to realize who this was. How are you, Detective? I was sorry to hear about your partner.”

“Thank you. It’s been a rough few days.”

“I just saw the news a few minutes ago on the net. The whole office is talking about it. I couldn’t believe it when I read the name Ed Becker. I was like,
Hey, I know that name
.”

Apparently the assistant chief had already held his press conference, but it didn’t change what Ellie wanted to do. “I was wondering if you might be willing to help out again?”

“I’m not sure how I could possibly help.”

Ellie had hoped Upton would be eager to help out of curiosity. Massaging this was harder than she expected.

“If I get Becker’s laptop, will you be able to see if he hacked into any FirstDate accounts?”

“Don’t you have people there who know how to do that?”

“Yeah, we do. But since Becker was also a cop, I’d rather get a first look from someone who’s not part of the department. Would you mind? Obviously I’d have our people take another look officially, but I’d feel better getting an initial lay of the land.”

“Uh, sure. I guess I can at least look. I might not be able to tell anything, though. It depends how good he was at cleaning up his tracks.”

Ellie thanked Upton, then estimated the time it would take for Dixon to get an arrest warrant for Rostov and to negotiate the release of Becker’s laptop from the NYPD. “It probably won’t be until tomorrow. End of today at the earliest.”

“That should be fine. I’ve got a pretty flexible schedule here.”

“Thanks. And we can keep this between the two of us? You can understand how sensitive this is.”

“Sure. Mum’s the word.”

Ellie was taking a risk trusting Jason Upton, but she’d thought it through carefully. If Upton were the kind of person who wanted attention, he would have already sold to the highest bidder everything he knew about FirstDate and the help he’d given McIlroy on Becker’s background check. He hadn’t. This call helped confirm her impression: Upton would not go to the media. She thanked him once again before saying good-bye.

Another call came in just as she flipped her phone shut. “Hatcher.”

“Detective Hatcher, this is Barbara Hunter, Carrie Hunter’s mother? I hope it’s okay to call you. Your partner gave me both of your numbers last week, and, well, I know from experience you’re going through some very difficult times right now, but I didn’t know who else to call. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

“That’s okay, Mrs. Hunter. Of course you’re welcome to call me whenever you’d like.” Ellie looked at her watch, feeling the minutes slipping away, along with the high of the momentum of ideas and energy she’d felt in Dixon’s office.

“I saw the news about that police officer on CNN. He’s the man who killed Amy?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Someone should have called you before the press conference to tell you personally.” Apparently Lieutenant Jenkins’s penchant for rudeness extended beyond Ellie and departmental politics.

“I’m calling because I’ve seen that man before. He came to see my daughter at her apartment. I was there for a visit, and I never forget a face. I’m sure it’s the same police officer.”

Ellie pictured the note in Caroline Hunter’s binder —
MC Becker
. “You can confirm that Becker met your daughter on FirstDate?”

Then, even before Mrs. Hunter corrected her, she realized what she’d been missing.

“No. He went there as a detective. He took a report from her, a report about her credit card.”

Ellie felt the high coming back on. She knew in her gut that this was related to the motive — not religion, not the Book of Enoch, but greed, jealousy, lust, or revenge.

“He didn’t go see her about FirstDate,” Ellie said.

“Well, I guess it was about FirstDate to some extent. She opened a new MasterCard, used it on FirstDate, and then within a month, she got a bill for a refrigerator purchased in Houston, Texas.”

“And she reported the fraudulent charges?”